Archive for the ‘24 hours of LeMons’ tag

It’s that time of year again. Editor-in-chief McGean (the other Terry) and I are headed to New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, New Jersey, this weekend for the annual stop of the 24 Hours of LeMons, aptly named the Real Hoopties of New Jersey.

Junkernauts: Going where no hooptie has gone before.

LeMons racing, for those not already familiar with it, involves racing a car with a maximum cost of $500 before installing a proper seat, roll cage, harness and related safety items, which might also include new brakes, tires and the like. A clever word play on the American way of butchering the pronunciation of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the notion that clunkers worth $500 or less are lemons, the series has been going strong since its debut as one-off race in California in 1986. But apparently the national appetite for racing clunkers was more than series organizer Jay Lamm ever imagined.

The 24 Hours of LeMons draws huge fields, many times over 100 cars in a single event.

For 2014, there are 20 races scattered across the country, including two at NJMP. In most cases, the weekend-long events are not true 24-hour enduros, but two six-to-eight hour sessions held on Saturday and Sunday. At NJMP, we will be racing eight hours on Saturday and six-and-a-half on Sunday. In theory, anyway. Our 1999 Ford Contour SVT needs to survive. And that’s part of the battle and all of the beauty of LeMons racing, for some of the most excitement takes place in the pits. Just follow a snail trail of leaking fluids somewhere and you will find some team wrenching like mad to get back out on the course.

It helps to have a sense of humor when racing $500 cars.

The great part is that this is amateur racing at the entry level – though many skilled and experienced drivers compete, people are often willing to help each other out. LeMons racing rewards ingenuity with the same gusto that Formula 1 honchos stifle creativity these days. In fact, the most coveted award is not the overall winner, though there are three classes that are so recognized, but the Index of Effluency, another play on words based on the LeMans Index of Efficiency that was awarded in the early days of the race. The Index of Effluency prize, which merits the top cash award, is given to the team that does the most with the least. The more obscure, unloved and slow a car is, the more likelihood it has of winning… assuming it finishes, of course. If it’s from France, then the odds go up greatly of claiming the prize.

Camaros generally make decent race cars, but, uh, not this one.

Some cars seems like natural born racers. E30-era BMWs have been dominant of late. Miatas and Fox-body Mustangs have their run of great results. And Honda products seems to do very well. Shockingly, here in the Northeast, we have raced in events where three of the top five finishers were driving late 1980s Alfa Romeo Milano sedans, cars with a notorious history for extremely suspect quality and durability. Of course, just try finding parts for an Alfa Romeo in Millville, New Jersey, on a Sunday morning. Ain’t gonna happen.

So we went the domestic route, entering the hopped-up version of Ford’s venerable, Euro-inspired, small-class 1990s jellybean. Despite its SVT initials, the car drew laughs from race organizers when we mentioned the model. They told us flat-out that Contours have never won and that we were unlikely to even finish.

Editor Shea strapping in for his stint during the 2013 Real Hoopties of New Jersey race.

But two years and three races under our belt, as the Junkernauts (catchphrase on our NASA-themed logo: “Going where no hooptie has gone before”), we’ve actually managed to hold our own. No, we aren’t all that close to claiming any outright victories, but with five or six drivers on our team, the goal is to get as many of us in the car as often as possible. So, instead of two-hour stints for each driver with precision driver changes, we do one-hour turns and the entire pit out, off track, fuel up and return to the trace process takes at least 10 minutes. Still, each of us typically gets two or more hours on the track.

Though done with the tongue firmly implanted in the cheek, LeMons racing is bona fide, wheel-to-wheel, heart-racing action.

The fields tend to thin out on Saturday afternoon, which is when you can get your best lap times. But given that these are often clapped-out street cars rescued from the boneyard, the plentiful yellow flags give you a few laps to cool off and regroup your head, lest you start thinking that a handful of good, clean laps makes you the second coming of Juan Manuel Fangio. Red mist and whatnot.

Despite plenty of rules that discourage contact, there is plenty during a LeMons race.

And the $500 racing is a bit of a misnomer. Preparing a car, complete with new brakes, tires, a good five-point harness, racing seat and a high-quality roll cage (all essential) as well as having a decent set of spares (brakes, tires and known parts that might fail) can cost several thousand dollars, or less, if you can fabricate a cage on your own. Also, race entry fees have to be factored in. For 2014, each car costs $500 to enter and each driver needs to pay $150 per race, plus a $50 annual license fee. Crew members are charged $75 each. So you can see where $500 racing really costs a bit more.

Fueling up the Junkernauts Ford SVT Contour during the 2013 There Goes the Neighborhood race at New York’s Monticello Raceway.

But armed with a Ford Duratec V-6 which seems robust right up to its rev limiter somewhere north of 7,200 RPM, a somehow still held together five-speed transaxle, the stickiest tires we could find with the minimum 200 treadwear rating and four other like-minded knuckleheads (shout out to Wayne, Oleg, Dean and Anthony; last names withheld to protect the guilty), McGean and I are chomping at the bit to get strapped into our white lozenge of a car and go door-to-door racing against more than a hundred other equally enthused crap can racing teams starting tomorrow.

Editors McGean and Shea (left and right) strike a pose during the 2013 LeMons race at Monticello Raceway.

The self-deprecating bottom feeder of all motorsports events, The 24 Hours of LeMons, is set to kick off its 2008 season (that’s right, this foolishness now has a season—more about that in a minute) on May 10-11, 2008, at Altamont Motorsports Park, Tracy California.

Unfortunately, if you were hoping to enter your steaming $500 pile of race car in that particular junk parade, you already missed the entry deadline. But buck up, Fred Sanford. Realizing that halfwits and underachievers are a nationwide problem, 24 Hours of LeMons organizers have, for 2008, scheduled more races in Connecticut, Ohio and Texas, as well as another in California.

OK, so it’s not exactly a vintage race, but it could be an event remembered for many years to come—particularly if things get out of hand and footage of the action ends up on COPS, as we suspect it might.The 24 Hours of LeMons is a self-described “battle of old crapcans” that’s set to shake, shudder and smoke off the starting line of the Altamont Motorsports Park, in Tracy California, October 7-8, 2006.
According to the outstanding promotional piece on the 24 Hours of LeMons Web site:This endurance race is for cars purchased, fixed up, and track-prepped for a total of 500 bucks or less–and before reaching the grid, you’ll have to survive the Old-Lady Mannequin Slalom, the Oil-Slicked Baby Carriage Braking Test, the Brick On the Gas Pedal Challenge, and similar qualifying rounds.
The racing on Saturday and Sunday is broken up by an all-night party. Twelve hours into the race, the car voted People’s Choice (for best concept and prep) is called in and awarded a cash prize. Simultaneously, the car voted People’s Curse is called in and summarily crushed. At the end of 24 hours, a gala awards ceremony plies the survivors with trophies, plaques, and four-figure purses paid with canvas bags full of nickels.
Gentlemen, jump-start your lemons.

(This post originally appeared in the July 13, 2006, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)